• International Journal of Stem Cells
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2023

Liver organoids have gained much attention in recent years for their potential applications to liver disease modeling and pharmacologic drug screening. Liver organoids produced in vitro reflect some aspects of the in vivo physiological and pathological conditions of the liver. However, the generation of liver organoids with perfusable luminal vasculature remains a major challenge, hindering precise and effective modeling of liver diseases. Furthermore, vascularization is required for large organoids or assembloids to closely mimic the complexity of tissue architecture without cell death in the core region. A few studies have successfully generated liver organoids with endothelial cell networks, but most of these vascular networks produced luminal structures after being transplanted into tissues of host animals. Therefore, formation of luminal vasculature is an unmet need to overcome the limitation of liver organoids as an in vitro model investigating different acute and chronic liver diseases. Here, we provide an overview of the unique features of hepatic vasculature under pathophysiological conditions and summarize the biochemical and biophysical cues that drive vasculogenesis and angiogenesis in vitro. We also highlight recent progress in generating vascularized liver organoids in vitro and discuss potential strategies that may enable the generation of perfusable luminal vasculature in liver organoids.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.1437-1447
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• 2023

A recently bioinformatic analysis of genomic sequences of fungi indicated that fungi are able to produce more secondary metabolites than expected. Despite their potency, many biosynthetic pathways are silent in the absence of specific culture conditions or chemical cues. To access cryptic metabolism, 108 fungal strains isolated from various sites were cultured with or without Streptomyces sp. 13F051 which mainly produces trichostatin analogues, followed by comparison of metabolic profiles using LC-MS. Among the 108 fungal strains, 14 produced secondary metabolites that were not recognized or were scarcely produced in mono-cultivation. Of these two fungal strains, Myrmecridium schulzeri 15F098 and Scleroconidioma sphagnicola 15S058 produced four new compounds (1-4) along with a known compound (5), demonstrating that all four compounds were produced by physical interaction with Streptomyces sp. 13F051. Bioactivity evaluation indicated that compounds 3-5 impede migration of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.223-233
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• 2024

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has exacerbated the rate of tuberculosis (TB) infection among close contacts of TB patients in remote regions. However, research on preventive behaviors, guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM), among household contacts of TB cases is scarce. This study aimed to employ the HBM as a framework to predict TB preventive behaviors among household contacts of TB patients in the border areas of Northern Thailand. Methods: A cross-sectional study with multi-stage random sampling was conducted in Chiang Rai Province. The study included 422 TB patients' household contacts aged 18 years or older who had available chest X-ray (CXR) results. A self-administered questionnaire was used to conduct the survey. Results: The participants' mean age was 42.93 years. Pearson correlation analysis showed that TB preventive behavior scores were significantly correlated with TB knowledge (r=0.397), perceived susceptibility (r=0.565), perceived severity (r=0.452), perceived benefits (r=0.581), self-efficacy (r=0.526), and cues to action (r=0.179). Binary logistic regression revealed that the modeled odds of having an abnormal CXR decreased by 30.0% for each 1-point score increase in preventive behavior (odds ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval, 0.61 to 0.79). Conclusions: HBM constructs were able to explain preventive behaviors among TB patients' household contacts. The HBM could be used in health promotion programs to improve TB preventive behaviors and avoid negative outcomes.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.23-36
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• 2024

This research centers on the Taiwan Eye-Movement Corpus of Spanish (TECS), a specially created corpus comprising eye-tracking data from Chinese-speaking learners of Spanish as a third language in Taiwan. Its primary purpose is to explore the broad utility of TECS in understanding language learning processes, particularly the initial stages of language learning. Constructing this corpus involves gathering data on eye-tracking, reading comprehension, and language proficiency to develop a machine-learning model that predicts learner behaviors, and subsequently undergoes a predictability test for validation. The focus is on examining attention in input processing and their relationship to language learning outcomes. The TECS eye-tracking data consists of indicators derived from eye movement recordings while reading Spanish sentences with temporal references. These indicators are obtained from eye movement experiments focusing on tense verbal inflections and temporal adverbs. Chinese expresses tense using aspect markers, lexical references, and contextual cues, differing significantly from inflectional languages like Spanish. Chinese-speaking learners of Spanish face particular challenges in learning verbal morphology and tenses. The data from eye movement experiments were structured into feature vectors, with learner behaviors serving as class labels. After categorizing the collected data, we used two types of machine learning methods for classification and regression: Random Forests and the k-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN). By leveraging these algorithms, we predicted learner behaviors and conducted performance evaluations to enhance our understanding of the nexus between learner behaviors and language learning process. Future research may further enrich TECS by gathering data from subsequent eye-movement experiments, specifically targeting various Spanish tenses and temporal lexical references during text reading. These endeavors promise to broaden and refine the corpus, advancing our understanding of language processing.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.385-390
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• 2015

Purpose: This study evaluated the static stereoacuity by Distance Randot Stereotest (STEREO OPTICAL. Co., Inc. USA) and the dynamic stereoacuity by three-rods test (iNT, Korea). Criterion and correlation of stereoacuity between both tests and usefulness of two stereotest methods were also evaluated. Methods: For normal adults of 109 (male 61, female 48), mean age of 20.88 (19-32 years) years old, static stereoacuity by using Distance Randot Stereotest at 3 m distance, dynamic stereoacuity by using three-rods test at 2.5 m distance were measured. Results: The mean of distance static stereoacuity was $155.77{\pm}133.11sec$ of arc and the mean of error distance dynamic stereoacuity $11.13{\pm}9.69mm$. With equivalent-conversion stereoacuity of $23.44{\pm}20.96sec$ of arc, there was statistically significant differences (p=0.00) between two dynamic stereoacuity, but correlation was relatively low (${\rho}=0.226$). In the case of dynamic stereoacuity, separated to normal range by criterion of the error distance 20 mm, it showed the error distance of less than 20 mm in 97 subjects(89%) whose average of error distance and conversion mean dynamic stereoacuity were $8.43{\pm}5.10mm$ and $17.68{\pm}10.67sec$ of arc. repectively. The error distance of was equivalent-conversion dynamic stereoacuity 40.99 sec of arc (PD 62 mm basis) was 20 mm. Conclusions: The results of lower correlation between static and dynamic stereoacuity suggest that seterotest should be applied separately to different functions. The results of this study also suggest that Distance Randot Stereotest can be applied to static stereoacuity excluding monocular cues. Three-rods test can be applied to dynamic stereoacuity containing the response of the eye-hand coordination in the daily life of natural vision condition, including the monocular cues. These different approaches canprovide a criterion of the two stereoacuity and parallel use of the two tests would be useful. For dynamic stereoacuity by three-rods test, error distance 20 mm in a normal range of adults can be used as a criteria to get statistical meaning of the results.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.38-45
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• 1999

Objectives: We explored the characteristics of physiological variables such as electrodermal response(EDR) and electromyography(EMG) in patients with insomnia, panic disorder, and other anxiety disorders. we aimed to decide the minimum sessions in biofeedback treatment to make the treatment effective and examine the effects of long-term biofeedback treatment by measuring the physiological variables. Methods: Thirty seven outpatients who received biofeedback treatment were divided into 3 groups according to the number of biofeedback sessions(patients who received 4-5 sessions, who received 6-9 sessions, and who received more than 10 sessions). We measured mean and delta values of EDR and EMG levels, and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale(HARS), and Slef-Relaxation Inventory(SRI) in all patients. Data were analyzed by t-test and repeated measures analysis of variance. Results: The mean and delta values of EDR and EMG levels were not different among the 3 groups during the first 4 biofeedback sessions. However, patients who received more than 10 biofeedback sessions had higher baseline mean EDR value(F=2.233, p=0.036) in the first session, compared with other patients. In patients who received more than 10 biofeedback sessions, mean EDR was significantly reduced after $5^{th}$ session(F=10.41, p<0.01). They showed significant improvement in SRI scores at 12th biofeedback session(t=2.726, p<0.05) and in HARS scores at $6^{th}$(t=3.10, p<0.05) and $12^{th}$ biofeedback session(t=10.93, p<0.001). Conclusions: Wesuggest that patients should receive more than 5 biofeedback sessions to experience internal cues and get a good clinical response to biofeedback treatment.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.181-196
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• 2023

Size, velocity, and time equivalence are mechanisms that allow us to perceive objects in three-dimensional space consistently, despite errors on the two-dimensional retinal image. These mechanisms work on common cues, suggesting that the perception of motion distance, motion speed, and motion time may share common processing. This can lead to the hypothesis that, despite the spatial nature of visual stimuli distorting temporal perception, the perception of motion speed and the perception of motion duration will tend to oppose each other, as observed for objects moving in the environment. To test this hypothesis, the present study measured perceived speed using Müller-Lyer illusion stimulus to determine the relationship between the time-perception consequences of motion stimuli observed in previous studies and the speed perception measured in the present study. Experiment 1 manipulated the perceived motion trajectory while controlling for the retinal motion trajectory, and Experiment 2 manipulated the retinal motion trajectory while controlling for the perceived motion trajectory. The result is that the speed of the inward stimulus, which is perceived to be shorter, is estimated to be higher than that of the outward stimulus, which is perceived to be longer than the actual distance traveled. Taken together with previous time perception findings, namely that time perception is expanded for outward stimuli and contracted for inward stimuli, this suggests that when the perceived trajectory of a stimulus manipulated by the Müller-Lyer illusion is controlled for, perceived speed decreases with increasing duration and increases with decreasing duration when the perceived distance of the stimulus is constant. This relationship suggests that the relationship between time and speed perceived by spatial cues corresponds to the properties of objects moving in the environment, i.e, an increase in time decreases speed and a decrease in time increases speed when distance remains the same.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.195-215
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• 2008

The scarcity is pervasive aspect of human life and is a fundamental precondition of economic behavior of consumers. Also, the effect of scarcity message is a power social influence principle used by marketers to increase the subjective desirability of products. Because valuable objects are often scare, consumers tend to infer the scarce objects are valuable. Marketers often do base promotional appeals on the principle of scarcity to increase the subjective desirability their products among consumers. Specially, advertisers and retailers often promote their products using restrictions. These restriction act to constraint consumers' ability th take advantage of the promotion and can assume several forms. For example, some promotions are advertised as limited time offers, while others limit the quantity that can be bought at the deal price by employing the statements such as 'limit one per consumer,' 'limit 5 per customer,' 'limited products for special commemoration celebration,' Some retailers use statements extensively. A recent weekly flyer by a prominent retailer limited purchase quantities on 50% of the specials advertised on front page. When consumers saw these phrase, they often infer value from the product that has limited availability or is promoted as being scarce. But, the past researchers explored a direct relationship between the purchase quantity and time limit on deal purchase intention. They also don't explored that all restriction message are not created equal. Namely, we thought that different restrictions signal deal value in different ways or different mechanism. Consumers appear to perceive that time limits are used to attract consumers to the brand, while quantity limits are necessary to reduce stockpiling. This suggests other possible differences across restrictions. For example, quantity limits could imply product quality (i.e., this product at this price is so good that purchases must be limited). In contrast, purchase preconditions force the consumer to spend a certain amount to qualify for the deal, which suggests that inferences about the absolute quality of the promoted item would decline from purchase limits (highest quality) to time limits to purchase preconditions (lowest quality). This might be expected to be particularly true for unfamiliar brands. However, a critical but elusive issue in scarcity message research is the impacts of a inferred motives on the promoted scarcity message. The past researchers not explored possibility of inferred motives on the scarcity message context. Despite various type to the quantity limits message, they didn't separated scarcity message among the quantity limits. Therefore, we apply a stricter definition of scarcity message(i.e. quantity limits) and consider scarcity message type(general scarcity message vs. special scarcity message), scarcity depth(high vs. low). The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the scarcity message on the consumer's purchase intension. Specifically, we investigate the effect of general versus special scarcity messages on the consumer's purchase intention using the level of the scarcity depth as moderators. In other words, we postulates that the scarcity message type and scarcity depth play an essential moderating role in the relationship between the inferred motives and purchase intention. In other worlds, different from the past studies, we examine the interplay between the perceived motives and scarcity type, and between the perceived motives and scarcity depth. Both of these constructs have been examined in isolation, but a key question is whether they interact to produce an effect in reaction to the scarcity message type or scarcity depth increase. The perceived motive Inference behind the scarcity message will have important impact on consumers' reactions to the degree of scarcity depth increase. In relation ti this general question, we investigate the following specific issues. First, does consumers' inferred motives weaken the positive relationship between the scarcity depth decrease and the consumers' purchase intention, and if so, how much does it attenuate this relationship? Second, we examine the interplay between the scarcity message type and the consumers' purchase intention in the context of the scarcity depth decrease. Third, we study whether scarcity message type and scarcity depth directly affect the consumers' purchase intention. For the answer of these questions, this research is composed of 2(intention inference: existence vs. nonexistence)${\times}2$(scarcity type: special vs. general)${\times}2$(scarcity depth: high vs. low) between subject designs. The results are summarized as follows. First, intention inference(inferred motive) is not significant on scarcity effect in case of special scarcity message. However, nonexistence of intention inference is more effective than existence of intention inference on purchase intention in case of general scarcity. Second, intention inference(inferred motive) is not significant on scarcity effect in case of low scarcity. However, nonexistence of intention inference is more effective than existence of intention inference on purchase intention in case of high scarcity. The results of this study will help managers to understand the relative importance among the type of the scarcity message and to make decisions in using their scarcity message. Finally, this article have several contribution. First, we have shown that restrictions server to activates a mental resource that is used to render a judgment regarding a promoted product. In the absence of other information, this resource appears to read to an inference of value. In the presence of other value related cue, however, either database(i.e., scarcity depth: high vs. low) or conceptual base(i.e.,, scarcity type special vs. general), the resource is used in conjunction with the other cues as a basis for judgment, leading to different effects across levels of these other value-related cues. Second, our results suggest that a restriction can affect consumer behavior through four possible routes: 1) the affective route, through making consumers feel irritated, 2) the cognitive making route, through making consumers infer motivation or attribution about promoted scarcity message, and 3) the economic route, through making the consumer lose an opportunity to stockpile at a low scarcity depth, or forcing him her to making additional purchases, lastly 4) informative route, through changing what consumer believe about the transaction. Third, as a note already, this results suggest that we should consider consumers' inferences of motives or attributions for the scarcity dept level and cognitive resources available in order to have a complete understanding the effects of quantity restriction message.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.147-165
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• 2008

IT education can be summarized as persuading the educatee to accept IT. The persuasion is made by delivering the messages for how-to-use and where-to-use to the educatee, which leads formulation of a belief structure for using IT. Therefore, message based persuasion theory, as well as IT acceptance theories such as technology acceptance model(TAM), would play a very important role for explaining IT education. According to elaboration likelihood model(ELM) that has been considered as one of the most influential persuasion theories, people change attitude or perception by two routes, central route and peripheral route. In central route, people would think critically about issue-related arguments in an informational message. In peripheral route, subjects rely on cues regarding the target behavior with less cognitive efforts. Moreover, such persuasion process is not a one-shot program but continuous repetition with feedbacks, which leads to changing a belief structure for using IT. An educatee would get more knowledge and experiences of using IT as following an education program, and be more dependent on a central route than a peripheral route. Such change would reformulate a belief structure which is different from the intial one. The objectives of this study are the following two: First, an identification of the relationship between ELM and belief structures for using IT. Especially, we analyze the effects of message interpretation through both of central and peripheral routes on perceived usefulness which is an important explaining variable in TAM and perceived use control which have perceived ease of use and perceived controllability as sub-dimensions. Second, a longitudinal analysis of the above effects. In other words, change of the relationship between interpretation of message delivered by IT education and beliefs of IT using is analyzed longitudinally. For achievement of our objectives, we suggest a research model, which is constructed as three-layered. While first layer has a dependent variable, use intention, second one has perceived usefulness and perceived use control that has two sub-concepts, perceived ease of use and perceived controllability. Finally, third one is related with two routes in ELM, source credibility and argument quality which are operationalization of peripheral route and central route respectively. By these variables, we suggest five hypotheses. In addition to relationship among variables, we suggest two additional hypotheses, moderation effects of time in the relationships between perceived usefulness and two routes. That is, source credibility's influence on perceived usefulness is decreased as time flows, and argument quality's influence is increased. For validation of it, our research model is tested empirically. With measurements which have been validated in the other studies, we survey students in an Excel class two times for longitudinal analysis. Data Analysis is done by partial least square(PLS), which is known as an appropriate approach for multi-group comparison analysis with a small sized sample as like this study. In result. all hypotheses are statistically supported. One of theoretical contributions in this study is an analysis of IT education based on ELM and TAM which are considered as important theories in psychology and IS theories respectively. A longitudinal analysis by comparison between two surveys based on PLS is also considered as a methodological contribution. In practice, finding the importance of peripheral route in early stage of IT education should be notable.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.165-177
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• 2015

Objectives: Based on individual and environmental characteristics of low-income children, we developed a nutrition education program for school-aged children from low-income families according to effective use in social welfare centers. Methods: We conducted in-depth group interviews to assess program needs in 28 participants, 10 low-income school-aged children and 9 of their care givers, 9 social workers and 9 care-givers. Theoretical backgrounds of our program were heath belief model and social cognitive theory considering motivation, action and environment characteristics. Results: Based on the findings of this qualitative study, we developed major program themes and contents. Five selected key themes were 'balanced diet', 'processed food', 'food hygiene and safety', 'Korean healthy traditional diet', and 'family cooking' to induce changes in dietary behaviors. Main findings of in-depth group interviews included 'child's active participation', 'simple and easy to understand messages', and 'environmental constraints' such as a lack of child care at home, limited budget of social welfare centers, and less qualified educators for nutrition and health. Each lesson was constructed as a 1-hour program particularly emphasizing activity-based programs, including cooking and teamwork exercises. Program contents in each session consisted of activities that could induce outcome and value expectations, self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and barriers and cues to actions regarding diet behavior. Conclusions: We developed a nutrition education programthat is rarely available for low-income children in Korea, considering theoretical bases. Further studies are needed to validate our program.